[wulinka]

A friend's husband is an aspiring comedian and asked me to take pictures during one of his gigs.
It was the first time I had to use flash as the almost exclusive light. To make things worse, during his performance he was up on a stage, so that I had a weird perspective, and I only had about 5 minutes to get some decent shots.

I want to take more pictures when he is rehearsing and there is no audience to get annoyed about the flash and me being in the way. But for now I am trying to make the best of what I got last night.

So far I have slightly adjusted his skin, using shodow/highlight adjustment, curves and selctive color correction. And as you can see I tried to clean up the background a little, without denying the location we were at.

Can some of you PS experts please help me out with stuff like lighting effects and such? Also he has some yellowish flecks in his face which I would like to selectively desaturate but can't figure out how to.

Thank you so much!

Uli

#1 original


#1 edited


#1 edt crop


#2 original


#2 edited

[NT73]

They look fine to me, but if he is a comedian then what is he laughing at ? No teeth.
More like angry young man. I have found the skin colours etc. under flash are due to white balance settings, but not using flash much I'll leave to the experts.
I like his hands in the second shot. They are very expressive.

[Petographer]

I have a hard time seeing the yellowish flecks you talk about. Any editing that I might do not likely would come out much different. I will try though.

[Irma]

I find fine the pictures you have edited... I wouldn't know how to improve them... perhaps trying a b&w conversion just to have another version?

[EnglishBob]

That's a tough situation to shoot in, really like the improved processed shots.

[shuttertalk]

I think the edited versions have come out very well, period. The fact that you've used only the flash for primary lighting is very impressive, given the challenging situation. I like #2 in particular - it fills the frame and captures him in a very interesting pose, which would be good for a poster or promo material.

[Toad]

#2 grabs me - not only because of the more animated pose - but because his eyes are more clear - and the eyes really animate his expression - the window of the soul and all, yes?

I am not sure that I could improve on #2 lighting and skin tone wise - I think you have it nailed. If anything - a slightly more dramatic background?

[Schellamo]

Now i'm wondering if my monitor calibration is off again- to me the original skin tones look right and the edited ones look yellowy green, but no-one else has mentioned it, so I'm guessing it must be my monitor ...hmph :/

other than that, the shots look good.

[wulinka]

Schell, I see where you are coming from!! Screens can be so deceiving! that's why I use guidelines from "smugmug" on skintones:check them out check them out, I've found them quite helpful.

Toad, any suggestions in terms of the background?

Thanks everyone for your encouraging comments!
Nevertheless, I tried this one with one soft spotlight, I kind of like how it shifts the emphasis in the picture from his hands to his face as the primary focus... what do you think?



uli

[Toad]

Yes - that new soft-spotlight looks good.

I actually played around with substituting the background for a dark blue with a single spotlight on the background (hard to describe) - but somehow I deleted it without saving... if I get some time today, I'll try it again.

[Toad]

Here is what I was thinking - it was a 5 minute job - you can do better with a little effort, I am sure...

[wulinka]

Thanks toad!

[wulinka]

That was funny, toad, we posted simultaniously

[Toad]

Hah! I just noticed that I severed his right arm!! This is what comes from 5 minute hacks that you immediately post!

[Toad]

There! I hate leaving things half-done...

[wulinka]

so how did you do it?
it looks pretty awesome, except that I don't like the border of his hair. probably takes a half an our selection job to get it right....

thanks for your work!

[Toad]

Totally right about the hair - you need to take a lot more care than I did to make the hair look "right" - maybe use a much smaller / much softer eraser. I just used the magic wand and didn't even feather - so as I say, you can do a lot better with a bit of effort.

1. Duplicate the background layer. Name the new layer "Comedian".
2. In the Comedian layer, select the background with whatever tools you need to use. Be sure to leave black bits of the comedian intact - like his arm, for example...
3. Snip, snip - cut the background away from the Comedian layer. The Comedian layer should now only have the man in it and no background.
4. Create a new blank layer between the background layer and the Comedian layer - name it "Spotlight"
5. Select a color you like (I used dark blue) and use the paint bucket to totally fill the Spotlight layer with the color
6. With the Spotlight layer, selected: Filter-> Render - Lighting Effects Select Spotlight and move it around until you like the look. Click OK
7. Layer -> Flatten and Voila...

I have used this technique quite a bit in cases where I have crappy black backgrounds - its quite simple and looks impressive:

An example: http://www.shuttertalk.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=2187

(To see more of the above session: http://www.photofx-canada.com/index-3.html Select Dance Portfolio)